Like totally wiped

In Monday’s column I stood up for punctuation. Confessing my sins, I affirmed the necessity, for the good of mankind, of using the grace notes of grammar and superscripts of language handed down from our betters that make life worth living.

But we are still left with the mystery: Why, when there is a better way and a worse way, do we invariably find it a kind of perverse principle that the superior never lifts up the inferior, but rather the inferior drags down the superior? This unfortunate law is seen not only in grammar but also in every sphere of life you can name.

The vexing conundrum came to me when I was reading (of all things) Leviticus:

“If a woman has a discharge of blood for many days … all the days of the discharge she shall continue in uncleanness. As in the days of her impurity, she shall be unclean. … And everything on which she sits shall be unclean. … And whoever touches these things shall be unclean …” (Leviticus 15:25–27, ESV).

And Deuteronomy:

“When the LORD your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you … you must devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them. … You shall not intermarry with them … for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods …” (Deuteronomy 7:1–4, ESV).

Why is it that when the unclean touches the clean, the transfer of properties is always in the one direction—the unclean contaminating the clean, rather than the clean conferring renewal and cleanness to the unclean? If you think this is an obvious (not to say dumb) question, maybe it is because we are so used to the phenomenon that it doesn’t seem odd. From childhood we have heard our mothers say, “Johnny, don’t touch the cake I just made because your hands are dirty?” Why wouldn’t it be, “Johnny, go touch the cake I just made so that it will make your hands clean”?

Germs, you say smugly. Really? Does that explain why things in the universe tend to decompose rather than compose (the second law of thermodynamics)? Or does it explain the Deuteronomy passage—why the comingling of the people of God and the people of the devil should turn good people bad and not the bad people good? Huh? The God who is in us is greater than the one who is in the world. So why shouldn’t we expect that putting a Christian and a pagan together in a marriage would be a good idea?

These spiritual things are too high for me. Let us descend the stratosphere to matters more our ken: the English language. How did “like” become a ubiquitous particle of speech, an obligatory and overused adverb? How did the blunt instrument of “totally” become acceptable, even among those who know better, for expressing emphasis or agreement? How did I start using “wiped” for “exhausted”? I’ll tell you why. Because you and I want to fit in, to be liked, to be cool. And we would throw Shakespeare and Samuel Johnson under the bus to achieve it!

Sorry for the rant. Whatever.